|
@Apache. You made me laugh. Pigs might fly. @Glen Barrington. My attitude to B&M book stores is much the same as yours. Amazon online wins hands down. The biggest effect of Amazon stores replacing a reasonable number of B&M stores will be on the print distribution network of the big traditioal publishers and those other businesses which are part of that infrastructure. Even companies like Ingram Spark should be getting nervous. The large traditional publishers will become significantly more dependant on Amazon. Also, many of the traditional promotional tricks likely won't work. Amazon physical stores are unlikely to take money for prominent placement of tradpub books. And Amazon imprint titles and the best selling self-published titles are suddenly going to reach a much wider audience.
Your other points are good ones. I don't live in the US and have never had the pleasure of visting an Amazon books store, but my understanding is that they stock a relatively small number of titles carefully selected using their extensive online data for the area. I also understand stock turns over fast. Early criticism was levelled at these shops for the relatively paltry number of books carried. However, I posted once before that perhaps a better way to look at an Amazon store was as if there was a transparent wall at the back looking into an Amazon warehouse with just about every book you could want available. In cities with Amazon warehouses close by it is not inconceivable that you could order a book not on the premises, go off and have a coffee and cake for an hour and come back to pick up your book. And yes, Amazon stores promote their hardware, promote books and other products, promote Prime Membership. The potential advantage of even one such store in each large US City are enormous.
|